EBay Inc. began quietly testing on its eBay Germany site this month a significant expansion of its PayPal Buyer Protection program that, if successful, could be implemented in other countries, a PayPal spokeswoman said Thursday.

The trial expansion of the PayPal Buyer Protection program centers on removing requirements for sellers to qualify for it, which means more buyers will be covered, said PayPal spokeswoman Amanda Pires.

Right now, to qualify for the PayPal Buyer Protection program, eBay sellers must have accumulated at least 50 feedback entries from others who have done business with them. In addition, the sellers must have a positive feedback rating of at least 98 percent.

The expansion being tested in Germany removes those two requirements, so that as long as buyers pay for items on eBay using the PayPal online payment system, they will be covered by the buyer protection program, she said. The other change in Germany is that the maximum amount covered has been raised from